Greg Hoberg and I made four good dives in two days this week, we dived the last day of summer and the first day of fall. Sea conditions were less than ideal so we made one dive off Point Joe near Spanish Bay (Pebble Beach-Asilomar) and the other three dives inside Monterey Bay. Visibility was disappointing on our Point Joe dive (20 to 25 ft with suspended particles from sea surge),(by our current spoiled standards, we've had better than typical summertime visibility on our dives this summer). It also continues to be much warmer than normal, we will miss this when it reverts to normal. Below are a couple pictures from this dive, I didn't take many, a few more may be found at:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6198508433988456001?authkey=CN3uuvHLz-rl4AE
Greg found a couple of golf balls, they certainly had traveled quite a ways from where they were played!
Can you find the sculpin faces? One is facing the camera, 1/4 up from bottom, 1/3 in from right. The other is facing left, 1/4 up from bottom, 1/5 in from left margin.
Our second dive was outer Otter Cove (Otter Cove is my favorite shore dive site in Monterey Bay, great offshore rock structure if you are ready and able to do a long snorkel swim from shore). We had great light and good visibility - 25 to 30 ft or so. 62 degree water at the bottom! A highlight of the dive was right at the beginning. Greg spotted a nice sized wolf eel out in the open right after we started our dive.
The wolf eel is swimming toward the lower left corner of the picture.
The wolf eel is swimming across the center of the picture. Someday I'll get a good picture of a wolf eel out in the open, I hope....
Otter Cove has great rock structures.
This rock reminded me of the bow of a sunken schooner.
A really fun, relaxing dive, and thanks to having Greg's boat, no long swim back to shore, followed by a herculean climb up stairs to the car!
For a number of additional "seascape" pictures from this dive, please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6198509002966396721?authkey=CPi5we7x28qLXw
On Wednesday we made two dives on the first day of fall, both in Monterey Bay so that we didn't have to fight the choppy seas. The first dive was Chase reef, tucked just inside Point Pinos, the second dive on inner Chase reef a bit further into the bay near outer Otter cove. We were entertained by a hunting harbor seal on our first dive and we also found a new (for us) type of nudibranch, perhaps due to the exceptionally warm (62 degree, ten degrees above normal, at the bottom) water.
Black eyed goby with a horde of brittle stars. The brittle star population has exploded since one of their major predators, sea stars, were decimated by the sea star wasting disease.
Cabezon with brittle stars.
This harbor seal was hunting near us for much of our dive, always fun to see.
A new (for us) type of nudibranch (
Chromodoris macfarlandi), maybe here because of our much warmer than normal sea temperature.
Greg gets a ling cod close up.
A beautiful cabezon, well camouflaged to match the rocks. To see more pictures from this dive please go to:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6198509580285974129?authkey=CIuQp7KykuiUqAE
Our final dive was on "inner" Chase reef only about 1/3 mile further into the bay. Visibility was, unfortunately much reduced and bottom temperature was 57 degrees- still well above a normal 52, but not nearly as comfortable as 62 on our previous dive...
Beautiful kelp forest, look how much greener the water is on this dive.
More great rock structures.
For more from this dive, please see:
https://plus.google.com/photos/110159573286645489662/albums/6198508615738583265?authkey=CNjzoZiPzYKYNg
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